Buck Harvey: Spurs’ title chances will bend at the knees

In a year, Tim Duncan likely won’t have a job. Instead, he’ll be sitting at home, without much to do, while the biggest annual salary of his career disappears.

He’s lost money before. The labor agreement that ended the 1999 lockout made Duncan a small fortune. Before David Stern and Billy Hunter got together, Duncan was set to make a large fortune.

He handled that well, suggesting the looming lockout that could cost him over $21 million won’t leave him disgusted and ready to retire before his time. Duncan will keep playing as long as he can, because he loves it, and he will know when to walk away. His left knee will tell him.

That’s fitting. Knees this season, after all, will also have something to say about who wins the West.

It’s about more than just knees, naturally. Yao’s 24-minutes-a-night foot will be a factor, as will Ron-Ron’s mental well-being.

Then there’s the medical condition that goes far beyond ice and rehab: Here’s wishing George Karl’s throat is fully recovered and ready to yell again.

But when it comes to who will win, and why, nothing means more than knee-high packages of muscle, tendon and bone. This stretches from Kevin Garnett to Al Jefferson to Greg Oden to Blake Griffin.

A knee might have decided last season’s championship, too. When Kendrick Perkins went down in the first quarter of Game 6, it’s no coincidence the Celtics didn’t win another game.

This season, though, centers on the right knee of Kobe Bryant, much to his frustration. He long ago became tired of being asked about the offseason surgery, preferring to act as he always has. He thinks pain is something he can overcome.

Phil Jackson played into that toughness, rarely rationing Bryant’s minutes as Gregg Popovich has for years with Duncan. Now, however, Jackson is talking about limiting Bryant’s time early in the season, and the Lakers’ schedule will help him do that. Of the Lakers’ first 28 games, 20 are against teams who didn’t make the playoffs last season.

But he’s played more minutes in his career than Duncan has, and there were signs in the preseason it is catching up to him. He shot 28.2 percent.

So if Bryant begins to slow as the season progresses, and Kobe isn’t Kobe anymore, then are the Lakers the Lakers?

Given that possibility, a half-dozen teams will be in line with a chance to replace the champions in the West. And among them, with as good a chance as any, will be Duncan and his own iffy knee.

It’s difficult for either the Lakers or the Spurs to complain about health, especially if Portland is listening. Winning championships requires good luck, and Bryant and Duncan have combined to win nine of them.

So Duncan has been fortunate by any measure in basketball. And now, for the Spurs to have a chance at the NBA Finals this season, he needs that to continue.

No one with the Spurs expects him to carry them anymore. Manu Ginobili has that job now, if anyone does.

Still, even as his role continues to change, Duncan remains vital. Sometimes he needs to star, and sometimes he needs to make the game easier for everyone else.

Mostly, though, he simply needs to hold up. In February of 2009, in a stretch when he was playing as well as he had since the championships, he admitted his knee not only hurt. It hurt every day.

Someone asked him then how much longer he wanted to play, and he said 10 years.

“But my body won’t let me,” he said.

This, not a lockout or money or anything else, is the issue that dictates his career. As well as the West this season.
bharvey@express-news.net